Monday, July 1, 2013

[#2] A New Little Room

Just in the last two or three weeks have I really started brainstorming, usually as I'm falling asleep, about what I want to do with our new nursery. First, we had to decide on which bedroom would become the nursery. Ashlynn's room is closest to ours and originally we had planned to move her down the hall to her "big girl" room (even if she was still in a crib) and use her room as the nursery. It's a smidge smaller than the other two rooms, and again, closest to ours. After some thought, I changed my mind and convinced the Husband to follow suit.

First, the baby will be sleeping in our room, just as Ashlynn did, for anywhere from 6-12 weeks depending on feeding and sleep schedules. I'd love to transition Baby #2 to the crib sooner than we did Ashlynn (12 weeks), but we'll cross that bridge when we get there and when baby is ready. Second, the room at the end of the hall is the only bedroom, aside from the Master, with a ceiling fan. Since our upstairs gets really hot in the summer, even with our central air on, I'd prefer the baby have a ceiling fan to keep the air moving and reduce the SIDS risk. Ashlynn currently has a table fan on her dresser and keeps her cool enough, that I don't stress quite as much about her age in the heat. Third, if we moved Ashlynn, we'd then have to decorate two rooms. Even if we replicate her room down the hall, it's still another room to paint, since I'd be repainting hers for the baby and just time consuming. Which let's be honest, time is flying and adding more projects than necessary before baby arrives isn't the smartest idea.

All that aside, let's get on to the design boards. I usually find one piece of inspiration - fabric, wall print, pillow, etc - and the whole room comes together around it. If you go back to Ashlynn's original nursery design board, it looks nothing like her current room, but you can see how it evolved over time. So in line with that, I'm sure our final product will be different from what you see here, but it's a starting point and things I'm currently drawn to.

My original inspiration piece was the Serena & Lily Buddy Pillow, I bought it before we found out if we were having a boy or girl because I loved the dog silhouette and colors and knew they'd work in whichever direction I wanted to go.

My inspiration this time around I've found in fabric prints.

I came across this Lizzy House Constellation collection a few months back on See Kate Sew and immediately thought how cute this would be for coordinating bedding, curtains, and pillows for a little boy. It's also something that would grow well with him from baby to toddler and even young child if he was still into space, rockets, aliens, or Star Wars. It would be easy to evolve into something more "boyish" and add in his interests.

For a girl's room I've been really drawn to vintage inspired floral prints. I still like the combination of modern colors and art, but busy small floral prints have been catching my eye.

In addition to the fabric print inspiration, I definitely have fallen for the big black and white trend and want to incorporate it in either room. It's definitely a big trend in current fashion, but also home decor - just check your pinterest homepage. However, I don't want to go overboard with it since it might go the way of chevron (sorry zigzag lovers!) and just become over saturated and too much. I know I easily get tired of things that get too trendy and I'm trying to avoid getting the bug to redecorate too soon.

So without further ado... here's my boards!

For Baby Boy, I definitely want to paint the room Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray. It's the color I almost picked for Ashlynn's, before going a little sweeter and feminine with the seafoam green (SW Sea Salt). I would use some black and white graphic prints to anchor the space and then decorate with prints - fabric and wall art - consisting of navy and light blue. Finally I'd love to have little accents of emerald (the color of 2013), but I feel like that's something that may evolve out as the room really comes together, but right now I think it'd be a fun unexpected punch.

For Baby Girl, I love soft mix of dusty mauve for the walls (SW Vaguely Mauve) and accents of peach and aqua. Where I'd use a punch of a emerald for a boy, I'd use gold for a girl. Adding to the vintage vibe, but I'd still like to keep the room slightly modern with mixing fun polka dots, modern style crib, and pom trimmed curtains with the vintage inspired floral prints and art. I almost bought Ashlynn Splash the Cat before finding her Mira (a bunny for our Bunny!) and it turns out Splash would go perfect with my vision of Baby Girl #2's room! It might be my first baby purchase post gender reveal!

Okay, now July 19th can't come soon enough!

Tell me, how do you go about designing rooms? Do you map out your vision or just let things fall together?

23 comments:

I am so excited to see how your new little room evolves and actually to see all of your picks for a second child - I just found out that I am expecting my second and my first is only 8 months old! I love this timing!

Aw thank you! Right now I'm leaning towards the girls room, love everything in it... the boys I still feel like I need to really search and find a few more special items. I could always redecorate Ashlynn's ;)

I love your style! I too think its important to design a room that will transition as long as possible for our littles. They are only babies for a short time! Both of these room inspirations are to die for! You have such an eye for these things! I wish we lived closer so you could help me with my house! Also how do you put together your design boards? Is it on word or paint or something else I don't know about? Can't wait for the reveal to see which room you will be doing!!

Thank you Ashley! And with so many other rooms in this house to get to, we just can't afford to constantly be redoing children's rooms. I hoping to wait on both until they are out of toddlerhood and moving into big kid beds and have actual opinions haha. I have a mac so I use keynote (like powerpoint) to compile my collages.

Love both design boards! I am definitely a planner too and I think making design boards like yours are the perfect way to really see it all together before making any big commitments. Can't wait to hear the big news, prayers for a healthy baby boy or girl!

I'm starting to wonder why I don't really make these for other rooms in our house, I'd probably love them more and have a better focus if I did! Thank you for the prayers on the healthy baby! That's forefront on my mind and knowing that they'll stay in here cooking until Thanksgiving! No more early baby scares!

These look great! I had such a hard time designing Jane's Nursery. I would just sit in her blank Nursery for the longest time and stare at the walls. It was hard too because it was such a small space I bet you can't wait to know what you are having!!

What fun inspirations! We have #2 on the way and it definitely requires some juggling to consider sleeping arrangements. Of course, our oldest son has never been good to sleep alone, so that's part of it. Also, we only have 2 bedrooms total! We're setting up a nursery corner in our master this time. I'm having such fun thinking of how to make it special!

I love these design boards! We have a spare bedroom that will become another nursery eventually. I often dream about the design but with my first, I let the design happen organically. I love his nursery now because all of the pieces just fell into place without a ton of thought.

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